of course. the reasoning makes sense, but i just don’t have the time to keep up with it.
the other factor is i don’t really have any fighting-game friends anymore who want to meet up and grind out hours of playing with each other, which i find a lot more fun than netplay
Pros
Fighting games (for the most part) are the most accessible they’ve been (but could always be better)
More access to information than ever
Rollback becoming the norm (can play online somewhat legit)
Cons
Loss of stable periods of balance that everyone is contemporaneously attached to for at least a year and a half(?)
More access to anonymous assholes than ever
DLC delivery presents awkward pacing challenges for game balance and community discourse
Games change every month and who has time for that shit
I guess what comes out of all this is the business model pivot and shift to online for fighting games has changed the way people gather around and enjoy fighting games. The change has led to some quality of life stuff but also lost some of the stability.
12 years ago I felt I could follow multiple fighting game balance and scene developments with little effort, now I have to take a refresher course everytime there’s a new EVO finals Online (NA,EU) stream.
I think everyone who played games before the internet was very developed experienced some version of this. Of course it’s in Uncle from Another World
This seems to have proved a wrong assumption. The most popular character in the lower ranks is Giovanna. Sol is even the least popular of the 3 characters described as “balance” (I saw a lot more Kys and Mays).
I don’t know other players’ motivations, but when I was rotating half the roster to find my main, I only tried 2 or 3 matches with Sol because I find his style charmless and his default music unlistenable. There’s something about his character concept that doesn’t fit anymore in the cheerful atmosphere of Strive. I wonder if at some subconscious level, the fact that Sol literally has the body language of an asshole is one reason complaining about him has become a meme.
there has always been a risk of gg characters becoming coldsteel the hedgehog so this tracks
anyway, as far as strive is concerned I do want them to take a pretty light balancing hand right now. for sol, probably pick two of 5K, fS, 6S and hit them with nerfs, and then lower the damage on his H VV. May will probably get hit with something; I’d prefer they nerf her jH over her dolphin, but it’s probably the latter that gets nerfed. clip Ram’s meter generation and give morto longer recovery. I would also like something to force her to take more risks to get offense, but I don’t see it happening. Anji should get some buffs. make nagiha even on block, -7 is stupid for a move that offers little reward, especially when his fuujin mix is anemic anyway. he probably needs something else too, but I don’t know what. I’m not sure how to buff Gold dick. probably drop a frame on both 5p and 2p as a start, and give minigun a faster startup.
that’s really all I would do. I suspect Ky will get buffs, but I don’t think he needs them. as a Pot player if you asked me what to change on him to be greedy, I’d lower the recovery on HFB and either make 5p hit crouching (or fucking at least ram/gio running) or make 2p faster. but I don’t think he really needs those things. I need the 2p buff, but I suck, git gud, etc.
Evo is so fucking weird this year. Regions and games are presumably done to match timezone but it comes out in such a random order for the viewer.
No nerfs, only buffs.
This 24/7 automated Fightcade spectator stream launched yesterday: https://www.twitch.tv/povertycast
Each day, they have 5 games that rotate on a 20 minute basis and they announce it on Twitter. It’s really cool, it reminds me of what I liked about VF5US’s main menu spectating random matches, but it feels more like you’re walking through an actual arcade with multiple games. it’s great!
it is actual bullshit how they erased my boy’s nipples though
so proud and round 
they should do a young oro skin (based on young helio gracie presumably)
old man balls erasure
Actual bullshit that they didn’t model his genitalia
I think about this all the time when I read a Sol whining post seconds after being obliterated by may… I wonder how horrid the discourse around that game would be if it launched to strive numbers. Especially with the 60$ ultimate revision within a year.
Sol’s still better than everyone else though.
I think every character in strive should have an infinite combo, then nobody can complain that their character sucks
but like… you can just flip this. what if they never nerfed phoenix? game would’ve died, that’s what
no, people would just continue to play marvel
I don’t like MVC in general but yeah, phoenix needed to be hit.
I’m kinda pro balance patches but not like… every couple of weeks. Maybe like 1 or two a year?
I just think with GG specifically it (the game balance) is not as bad as other games have been in the past, so this stuff makes me roll my eyes a little. I don’t even lose to 10f sols anymore.
